


Boy time

by TooManyChoices



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Nightmares, PTSD John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-12
Updated: 2014-03-12
Packaged: 2018-01-15 10:43:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1301986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooManyChoices/pseuds/TooManyChoices
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John really hasn't dealt with Sherlock's time away. Mary's smart enough to see the cause and step in to get John the help he needs.<br/>I don't own any part of BBC Sherlock and I thank the writers for letting us play with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boy time

“Sherlock!” John sat up in bed shaking and tense as the nightmare released its hold on him. Wiping his hands across his face he softly swore as his breathing slowed from harsh gasps to a more regular pattern. Mary smoothed a calming hand down her husband’s arm knowing it wasn’t her touch he needed to settle the nerves; it was the touch of longer, more masculine hands.

“Same dream, love?” She began, quietly and without judgment.

“Yeah. Three nights in a row”, he laughed bitterly, “It’s getting a bit old. Sorry I woke you.”

“Hey, hey, stop it. It’s OK, I understand love. He was gone, then back, then at the airport you thought you were losing him again. I’m surprised you’re not more of a mess than you are. I’ve told you what I think you should do.”

“You think I need to spend a few days at Baker Street.”

“Yes. You need to convince yourself that he’s here, and staying. Reconnect with him on a deeper level than just coffee conversations and cases. I love you, and I know you love me, but you need Sherlock too and I hate seeing you hurting. I HATE it John.” Mary looked serious for a moment, “Listen to me John, this is important. What Sherlock and you had, what you still have, what you…”, she paused to find the right words, “could have....doesn’t scare me, and having him in our life doesn’t threaten what we have.” She took his face between her hands, “Trust me, you….need…both.”

“But I can’t leave you here on your own.”

Mary smiled in the dim light, “Of course you can, I might even get a decent night’s sleep.”

“I love you, you know?” John hugged his wife hard.

“Of course you do, I’m brilliant.” She giggled back.

 

John travelled light, even before the army he’d rarely taken more than a soft duffel unless he was expecting to stay in one place more than a week or two. Where the bag could be seen as transience to some, he saw it as flexibility and he liked that his home stayed in one place and his single bag shone a signal that he’d be returning sooner rather than later.

That being said, walking up the stairs of Baker Street felt oddly like returning home rather than visiting FROM home elsewhere. He wondered if that would ever change regardless of how long he and Mary lived in their own flat.

Pushing open the door, the sights and smells of the apartment wove their gentle magic around him and he let a deep cleansing breath fill and then leave his lungs. Books, toast, tea, the acrid smell of unidentified chemicals, a vague tinge of stale cigarettes all layered together to paint images of evenings by the fire, shared conversation and odd masculine domesticity so different from the life he shared with Mary. Not better, not worse just…different.

Sherlock was out, as John knew he would be. When he'd had asked if he could visit for a few days, not giving any detail as to why, Sherlock had been initially surprised but after reassurances that all was fine between him and Mary Sherlock had been content to wait for details. John could easily imagine Sherlock’s frisson of excitement at the thought that there was a puzzle waiting in his lounge room waiting to be picked apart over Chinese food and late night TV.

Dropping his toiletries bag in the bathroom and the remainder of his bag in his old room upstairs, John checked the fridge and made a quick trip out to gather the expected essentials always absent in Baker Street. He made a quick call to Mary, to reassure both her (and himself) that all was well and was soundly chastised for calling her during his “boy-time” and banished with a laugh and an order not to call for at least three days. He hung up wondering how he managed to end up so lucky before settling into his armchair with a couple of the latest medical journals he’d brought with him.

The light was fading when John woke, journal splayed on the floor where it had dropped from his fingers. In front of him, Sherlock sat in his immaculate suit with hands steepled under his chin, silently directing his hawklike gaze toward John as if the detective could discern answers from the expression on his sleeping face. John smiled under the familiar scrutiny; it had been some time since the intense focus had unnerved him.

“Sherlock.” John mumbled sleepily.

“John.”

“Tea?” John asked, falling into familiar patterns without pause as he rose from the chair.

“There’s no milk.”

“I bought some.” John called over his shoulder as he busied himself in the kitchen.

“Did you buy biscuits?” Sherlock added hopefully, a smile to his words.

“Yes Sherlock, I bought some biscuits too.”

John took his time with the cups, knowing the delay in providing answers would be driving Sherlock mad. They slipped back into a playful to-and-fro of challenge and bait with the ease of long familiarity. John balanced Sherlock’s pushiness with gentle humour and stubbornness, while friendship and trust smoothed rough edges and salved the occasionally hurtful word. It was all so simple.

Yet it was all terribly superficial. It was only John’s marriage to Mary that provided the catalyst for John to put into words the fact that Sherlock was his best friend. It was a close run competition which had been more of a surprise, the reality of the words for Sherlock, or John’s surprise that Sherlock had needed it to be said out loud to consider it as a possibility. Weddings were always a hotbed of exposed feelings and they’d taken opportunity to have some honest conversations where the chances arose, but in the months following, old behaviours had resurfaced and they were once again at an emotional arm’s length. John now found he missed the momentum they’d been building up.

John handed Sherlock the mug, “So…” he began.

“So?”

“Mary says we need some time…”

“What, time apart? I thought you said the two of you were fine” Sherlock looked concerned.

“What? No, not her and I…you and me.” John quickly tried to clear the confusion.

Sherlock’s look of concern escalated to something more firm, “She thinks WE need time apart? But I hardly see you now. You’re never at Barts with me, you’re working fewer cases, I’m always…..out of milk…” he trailed off as if realizing the last sounded a little pathetic.

John reached out to place a gentling hand on his arm, “No, Sherlock stop. Not LESS time, MORE time. She thinks we need to….reconnect.”

“Oh. Right... Reconnect.” Sherlock looked thoughtful, “No, I don’t understand. Reconnect is a ridiculous word in this context. What does she mean John?”

John slouched back in the chair, the easy laugh breaking the tension, “You know Sherlock, I have no idea at all. But I’ve been banished to Baker Street for the rest of the week to…I don’t know…hang out, eat rubbish food, watch crap telly, discuss the relative merits of Arsenal Vs Westham…man-things”, John added air talking-marks at the last and immediately hated himself for doing it.

Sherlock looked down his nose, “Really John? Football?”

“I panicked OK.”

Sherlock shrugged, “Chinese?”

Grabbing the lifeline out of the awkward conversation John jumped at the offer, “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”

John crawled into bed around midnight. Dinner had been…pleasant. They’d talked of cases, the clinic, the ineptitude of the British Police Force and although John had intended to confide that it was his nightmares that had initiated Mary’s directive to ‘go forth and bond’ he found that every time he tried to raise the subject he couldn’t find a path that didn’t make him sound like he was somehow blaming Sherlock for the situation. In the end, they’d returned to the flat and spent a companionable evening on the sofa watching repeats of Strictly Come Dancing while Sherlock critiqued form and John was oddly mesmerised by the sequins and lights, although perhaps the beer had helped with that.

Now he just hoped that the underlying smells of Baker Street would subconsciously avert the nightmares and Sherlock would be none-the-wiser as to the reason for his stay.

***

_The tangle of images overlapped in rapid succession. John surrounded by fire, the sound of bullets, a vest full of Semtex, Sherlock getting on a plane, a metal cage, the sound of a dog growling, Sherlock looking into a microscope, a small white tablet in a pill bottle, John alone, trapped, Sherlock falling, blood on a pavement, a wrist with no pulse, eyes with no life…….._

“SHERLOCK!” John sat up with a shudder, staring around the darkened room momentarily disoriented and wondering where Mary was before focussing on the old furniture of his Baker Street room. “Damn it, Damn it to Hell!” He picked up the empty glass on the bedside table and pitched it across the room to shatter against the wall as the door opened and Sherlock burst into the room, ducking the sudden spray of glass.

“John?”

“Fuck off Sherlock, just get out.”

“You called me…”

“I didn’t. I shouted your name but I didn’t….call you.” John gritted his teeth, let out a slow breath and forced himself to unclench his fists that had viciously grabbed the sheets around him.

Sherlock crossed the room and sat at the end of the bed. He was still dressed, his shirt and trousers covered by a maroon dressing gown. About as casual as he ever got, John thought idly. A glance at his clock showed 2am.

“Nightmare?”

“Yeah.” No point denying it, the evidence would have been clear to lesser minds than Sherlock Holmes.

“But not the war?”

John shook his head grimly, staring at his hands on the sheet and biting back the panic, tears and anger that all lurked just below the surface.

“Me.” More of a statement than a question, Sherlock’s voice was quieter now.

A nod.

“My fall?” Almost a whisper.

John softly replied, “All of it. The fall is only a part of it, but yeah, you doing a swan dive off St Barts is the show-stopper.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“Is this what Mary wanted me to see? How I’ve hurt you?” Sherlock added the last with a slight bitterness evident in his voice, “How I’m still hurting you?”

John hadn’t considered that Mary may have engineered the visit to make a point to Sherlock. It was possible, but John didn’t think it was likely. Mary was more about solutions rather than point-scoring.

“No. She might have, but no, I doubt it. If she did, it was only because she knew I’d never tell you. She just wants me to be happy, wants all of us to be happy.” John lifted his eyes from scrutinising his hands to see if Sherlock understood that this wasn’t about blame, it was about healing.

If Sherlock hadn’t also chosen that moment to look up, the emotional and physical gap between them may have remained insurmountable. Instead, Sherlock’s eyes came to rest on John’s and the grief, sorrow and regret that were clear in them were so at odds with everything that John knew of the emotionally distant detective that the tears that always seemed to be threatening these days bubbled closer to the surface.

Sherlock looked down at his own hands again and whispered, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix this.” There was an almost childlike fragility in the statement, as if a situation where the solution couldn’t be found was unknown in his adult life. He looked up at John, the glisten of tears at the corner of both their eyes catching the dim light of the room. With a plaintive edge to his voice that bordered on desperation he added, “Tell me what to do John, tell me how to help.”

John wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do, but sometimes logic takes a back seat to instinct so without a word, John crawled out from under the covers, down the bed and collapsed against Sherlock, winding his arms around the taller man's waist and laying his head on Sherlock’s lap. As the sounds of John’s muffled sobs began to break the silence of the room, Sherlock hesitantly brought his hands down to rub gentle circle on his best friend's back.

 

Sherlock would have stayed there all night if necessary. His legs were folded up underneath him and he’d lost the feeling in his right foot some time ago but it was a small price to pay if he could somehow provide support to his friend who had reached out and finally surrendered to the needs of his grief. John’s sobbing had confused and alarmed him until he’d realised that this may have been the first time he’d allowed himself to truly vent the pent up anger and heartbreak of the last two years. If that were true, then a numb foot and a section of trousers soggy with tears wasn’t much penance to pay as John’s shoulders heaved with ragged breaths and his arms clutched tightly at the taller man's back.

Sherlock drew meaningless circles and swirls on John’s back in what he hoped was a calming manner, providing an extra point of contact without confining or disturbing his friend. He knew his blogger well enough to recognise that while John needed this time, needed to get this out of his system, he would likely be horrendously embarrassed at the perceived weakness and the last thing he wanted from Sherlock was anything that could be considered pity. Therefore manly pats and a minimum of movement were best for the moment and they could deal with the aftermath later. While he waited for John to settle, Sherlock spent the intervening time planning strategies to deal with that aftermath.

At some point John’s breathing settled, his arms loosened their grip and Sherlock briefly thought John may have actually cried himself to sleep, but a slight tensing in the muscles of John’s shoulder alerted him that his friend had instead shifted from the ‘I’m having a bit of an emotional meltdown, excuse me for a moment’ stage of the evening to ‘Damn, I’ve just had an emotional crisis and feel like a bit of a twat’ scene. Sherlock smiled having considered no less than twenty alternatives to cope with this eventuality and moved to intercept the expected pulling back and apologies by leaning down to place a chaste kiss on the back of John’s head. He then gently placed a large hand in the spot he’d kissed and carded his fingers through John’s short hair.

John tensed all over, as Sherlock knew he would. Diverted from thoughts of his own embarrassment, John would be instead be sifting through potential reasons for Sherlock's odd behaviour. Sherlock began counting silently, estimating between ten and thirty seconds before John would lever himself up to a sitting position and would respond with one of three likely responses (or similar variants); Sherlock, what the hell? I'm not gay (80%), Sherlock, did you just kiss me on the back of my head? (10%), So, tea? (8%). At the twenty-two second mark, John's weight lifted from his lap and Sherlock awaited the outcome.

Much to Sherlock's consternation, John deviated from the expected path into the remaining 2% 'other' zone by sitting back silently, rubbing a nervous hand through his hair where he'd been kissed and blushed. Sherlock hurriedly sifted through remaining pathways and with some frustration discovered he hadn't considered this outcome. As a result, John scooting closer, wrapping him in a strong hug and murmuring "Don't leave me." in his ear wasn't a situation he had prepared responses for.

Sherlock had never been good at acting on instinct. He suspected it was because his instinct was often wrong but when given no alternative, he did the best he could. At least with John, he had a better idea of expectations. However right now, John was outside the bell curve or expected Watson behaviour. Sherlock hesitantly reached to hug John back, not knowing if John meant right now or forever, only knowing that the answer was simple. The deep words in response caused a shiver in the smaller man, "Never John. I give you my word, this time I'm here to stay."


End file.
